Balgarianovinite.com Wednesday marks the 100th birth anniversary of Bulgarian writer, translator and art critic and historian Vladimir Svintila.
Born Vladimir Nikolov in Ihtiman (Southwestern Bulgaria) on April 29, 1926, he inherited his pseudonym “Svintila” (meaning “light” in Sanskrit) from his father, lawyer and essayist Georgi Nikolov. Vladimir graduated from the Italian Secondary School in Sofia in 1945, after which he studied medicine and directing.
In 1949-1950, on a false charge of espionage, he was confined first to the Bogdanov Dol Camp and subsequently to Kutsiyan. Later, he studied Romance philology and graduated in law from the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia University in 1952.
Svintila worked as an editor at the Narodna Kultura newspaper (1957-1959) and at the Bulgarski Hudozhnik Publishing House (1960-1964). Between 1964 and 1969 he was a dramaturge at the Armed Forces Theatre (now Bulgarian Army Theatre). Then he was an editor at the Sofia News and Zhar newspapers (1969-1973), deputy editor-in-chief of the Sofiyska Pravda newspaper (1974-1977), head of department at Narodna Kultura (1978-1982), deputy editor-in-chief of Pravna Tribuna (1983-1984), and editor-in-chief of the Dariteli magazine (from 1985).
Svintila was exceptionally versatile in his pursuits: essayist, opinion journalist, translator, memoirist, prose writer and poet. He wrote the fictionalized biography A Word on the Icon-Painter Zaharii (1981), monographs on Bulgarian artists Vasil Barakov (1965), Andrey Nikolov (1969), Boris Angelushev (1969), Veselin Staykov (1970) and Vasil Zahariev (1972), History of the Samokov Icon Painting School (1979), as well as the books The Face of the Gorgon (1992), Zaharii Stoyanov (1996), From Marx to Christ (2002), Studies in Bulgarian Ethnosychology (2007), The Well of Silence (2009) and Forgotten Sofia (2017), screenplays for documentary films, the play Prometheus in Cyprus. He also takes credit for over 4,000 essays, articles and reviews on literary history and criticism, the history of fine art, art criticism, cultural studies, history, sociology and folk psychology that appeared in books, collections, and Bulgarian and foreign periodicals (Century and Times of India (India), Unidad (Peru), Neva and Vsesvit (USSR), Revista Geografica Universal (Brazil), Taide (Finland), UNESCO Bulletin (Paris), etc.). In the 1980s he began publishing fiction, and his first poetry collection appeared in 1994. His novels The Plateau and Written on Stone were published posthumously.
His works have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish and Russian.
Svintila was also a distinguished translator from Italian, French, English, Spanish, German, Ancient Greek and Latin. He debuted with Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1956) and Songs and Poems by Robert Burns (1957), both reprinted many times. From English he also translated plays by Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw, John Priestley and John Osborne, poetry by T. S. Eliot (Four Quartets), Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass), William Blake, and prose by Charles Dickens. From Persian he translated Omar Khayyam. He shared in compiling and translating a number of poetic anthologies, including An Anthology of World Love Lyric Poetry together with Grigor Lenkov (1979).
His honours include an award from the city of Siena, Italy, for the documentary film The Art of Siena (1968), directed by Hristo Mutafov.
Vladimir Svintila died in Sofia on January 13, 1998. 100th Birth Anniversary of Writer and Translator Vladimir Svintila 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-04-29 12:23:00 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law